Fare Bistro - anybody been recently??

I was there opening week and found it to be, well....just okay. I few others posted similar thoughts back in the spring when they first opened up. I recently heard a co-worker raving about the place but before I make a return visit, I just wondered whether any CH'ers have been in the last month or so and if so, whaddya think??

I've never been period and it's only a few blocks away from my house. I thought they got off on the wrong foot, with a super-heavy menu as it's getting nice and warm outside. Who wants to eat braised beef when it's hot?

No buzz, really. Maybe I'll eat there some time and love it, but probably not.

Yeah, that about sums it up - no buzz. Kind of a shame really. It looked like they put a lot of time and effort in to renovating the place, and coming from LeSelect his credentials were pretty good. Now I feel I should go for sure, just to give them another chance....I'm a sucker for the underdog.

So we decided to give Fare Bistro another chance last night. I'll try to keep this short and sweet. The food was okay but the service was extremely poor. The place was busy but not full. Our server, who I believe is the owner's wife, apologized at the end of our meal and mumbled something about not expecting to be so busy. Hello?? We had reservations, they knew it was East End Eats Out, they were not packed - still a table or two, and all of the bar stools empty, and keeping in mind the entire restaurant was ordering the same meal off the prixe fixed special menu!!!! I shudder to think how they would have coped if people were ordering various items off the menu. It really was just plain awful. These people do not have a clue on how to run a restaurant. We will not return anytime soon.

My wife and I found ourselves in an unusual situation last night as a formal function we were attending ended early. We were dressed up, childless, in the east end and we had about 2 hours before we had to get home for the sitter. We were looking for a place to grab some dinner and we wandered into Fare.

The room was busy, including two huge parties dining up front (one group had to be 14+ people). As we had no reservations, the waitress wasn't sure if she could seat us (there were two, maybe three empty tables in the place). She went and checked with someone (chef? owner? ouija board?) before coming back to offer us a table. It was a bit awkward standing alone at the front of the house, but whatever...

We shared the duck terrine to start and it was delicious, a really solid app.

My wife had duck confit and I had the lamb. My wife really liked the confit and my lamb was astonishingly good (as were the garlicky scalloped that came as side).

For dessert we shared a creme brulee that was well done. I've had better, I've had worse. Had I made it, I would have been pretty pleased with myself.

The wine list was meh. Not very well organized and a bit overpriced (at least 3x mark-up, some were more) and it's very lcbo/vintages heavy.

Service was ok. It was very proficient but would it kill them to smile?